This means there would be no more “white Christmas” or springtime Easter celebrations. After 750 years, June would be observed in winter instead of summer. Today, it sets our concept of time that helps us accurately and efficiently predict future events.įor example, a 365 day calendar that discounts those five hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds without adding a leap year, would provide a whole new concept of the seasons as time passes. In the early days, the leap year helped farmers account for seasonal switches that would affect crop growth. It moves further south in the winter season and north in the summer. When it comes to determining seasons, scientists observe the sun’s position on the horizon. This goes back to the concept of our calendars being aligned with the solar year. Our system relies on the sun to dictate how many days make up a year and when the seasons begin. So you may be asking, “Why does it matter if we count the extra time every year or every four years?” Aside from avoiding an awkward New Year’s celebration a quarter into the last day of the year, there are real issues relating to early sustainability and time that a leap year reconciles. We are essentially giving the fourth year 366 days to account for the time we take out in a standard year. That’s where the concept of the leap year occurring every four years comes into play. Every four years, those five hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds add up to a single day. But, that doesn’t mean the quarter of a day we don’t factor in just magically disappears. Easier said, we have 365 days in a standard calendar year. We still use the Gregorian calendar today, so we discount the extra five hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds. That almost quarter of a day tacked on to the 365 days is the important concept when it comes to answering, “What is leap year?” A single year is 365 days, five hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds. The year 1700 is not, so the leap year was skipped for an additional four years. Simply said, the year 2000 is divisible by 400, so a leap year occurred. Likewise, if a century year is not divisible by 400, there is not a leap year for another four years. In the new system, if the turn of the century year is divisible by 400, a leap year occurs. This compensated for history’s earlier mistake. Pope Gregory XIII then amended Caesar’s calendar by creating a system that subtracts three leap years every 400 years. By 1582, the previous astronomer method caused the calendar to be 10 days off, notable by Easter occurring too late in Spring. Interestingly enough, this distinction led to some pretty weird leap year rules when it comes to the turn of the century. To be exact, a single year is 365 days, five hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds. However, their estimates were also slightly off because a year is actually 11 minutes short of 365.25 days. With this new information, the leap year concept transformed from Caesar’s 15-month calendar to adding a single leap day on Feb. They explained that his calculation was based on a year having 364 days, but in reality it has 365.25 days. While he toyed with the idea of adding a leap month to compensate for calendar shifts, top astronomers at the time advised him otherwise. The concept arose in Rome while Julius Caesar was in power. Leap year actually has a scientific purpose to keep our calendars aligned with the solar year. When it comes to answering this question, you should know that leap year is much more than a fun day – February 29th – that gets added every four years. First things first, why is there a leap day? However, the concept is so much more detailed than that.ĮNTITY wants to make it easy for you. The easy answer? Leap year is a corrective measure for our calendar system. However, most people don’t know why we periodically add the 29th day of February. 29, 2016, which means we won’t have another one until 2020.
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